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The research will examine the context and characteristics of partnership and other co-operative arrangements currently emerging between employers and unions at the workplace level in Britain. Heightened competition and newly-introduced legislation aimed at strengthening employer/union relations have encouraged many employers to re-think employment relations strategy, and have caused unions to re-assess their role in the modern workplace. As a consequence, employers and trade unions are increasingly forming partnership agreements and other less formal co-operative relationships. Ten case studies will be conducted, five of which will be companies studied as part of the researchers’ previous ESRC-funded project. Each case will involve interviews with the firm’s human resources staff, the union full-time official responsible for dealings with the company, and the senior workplace union representatives. A particular focus will be changes in employer-union relationships with respect to the management of organisational change programmes, and the pressures that underlie the development of relationships in terms of managerial strategy and practice, and trade union strategy and structure. The research will also involve analysing the net benefits that each party derives from these relationships, and the role of the Employment Relations Act and of government bodies in promoting them.

Award/Grant Outputs and Documents
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